Police college of Finland: are they perpetuating hate?

What an irony. You would think that the publishing of hate crime statistics would be an annual opportunity to raise the profile of hate crime and also to renew efforts to prevent it. But no, the forums are alive with spurious interpretations of what it all means and even attempts to show that Somalis are in fact more racist than Finns. Can it be true?

One effect of hate crime statistics being published in Finland is that it brings up once again the unwelcome question of whether Finns are more racist than other nations. This isn’t my question, by the way, but it is one that Finns tend to dwell on, as if there were an acceptable level of racism that a country is allowed to have!

What has also been happening is that international comparisons are made for the statistics within Finland, so that means looking at the different nationalities living in Finland, and providing a league table of the racists among them.

This isn’t just something you will find in the hate forums though. On page 58 of the 2011 Police report (recently published by the Police College of Finland and the Ministry of Interior’s Police Department), the researchers themselves provide their own league table (Table 12) detailing racist crimes by foreigners per 1000 head of population, with Somalis top of the list on 10 per 1000 head of population, followed by Iraqis on 8. A quick calculation gives an equivalent rate for Finns of 0.1 per 1000 head of population. Wow, aren’t the Finns so much better than those dirty foreigners? Ugh, well, no actually! Quite the opposite! But you’ll have to bear with me, I’m afraid, because you see, they haven’t bothered to inform the reader just how useless and distorting this kind of statistic actually is.

Several figures for rate per capita are possible here. For example, we could look at those racist crimes that do not involve provocation by another racist. We could also look at the age group 15-34, as this is where the biggest problems lie (66% of racist crimes) and it’s also the segment of the population that is most different in proportions for the different nationalities (see below). Narrowing the focus doesn’t change any of the fundamentals in the argument, by the way.

These simple adjustments give us the figures of 0.028 attacks per capita by Finns aged 15-34, and 0.14 attacks per capita by Somalis of the same age.

It still looks grim for the Somalis, doesn’t it? But calculations made per capita are horribly flawed.

They ignore the fact that many Finns will seldom or never encounter a black immigrant, while the same is not true for black immigrants meeting white Finns.

Let’s put it plain and simple. If 1000 in a 10,000 Finns actually get to meet a Somali (or any other visible foreigner), and one of these Finns is a racist who decides to assault the foreigner, then it’s all too easy to claim that only one in 10,000 are racist because only one in 10,000 assaults showed up ‘per capita’, when in reality, it was one in 1000 Finns who got to encounter a foreigner and were racist. The opposite effect works for Somalis, who will likely encounter people of a different race many times daily.

Let’s show the maths

Two population groups, A and B, where A is a minority and B is a majority. Let’s set the rate of racism at 5% for both Group A and Group B, so we would therefore expect the per capita crimes to be the same. If they are not, then something is wrong with using per capita rates to define rates of racism.

Two key assumption, a racist assault can only be committed by someone who encounters someone else of a different race or ethnicity. One kind of racist is someone who has great difficulty in encountering someone of another race.

Group A – minority
N = 100 (total population of minority)
n = 100 (number of population encountering people of another race)
C = number of crimes per year = 5 (i.e. 5% of n)per capita rate = 0.05 (based on C/N)

Group B – majority
N = 2500
n = 250 (number of population encountering people of another race)
C = number of crimes per year = 12.5 (5% of n)
(1) per capita rate = 0.005 (based on C/N, i.e. not taking account of n)
(2) per capita rate = 0.05 (based on C/n, i.e. taking account of n)

The first calculation for the per capita rate of racist crime in the majority population (1) is 10 times greater that for the minority than the majority population, even though WE set the rate at EXACTLY THE SAME LEVEL, i.e. 5%, so as to control for it. In equation (2), the rate of encounter has been factored in and it delivers the correct rate of crime per capita.

Conclusion, the rate of encounter can have an enormous effect on statistics of rates of racist crime per capita.

if we used calculation (1), we would be throwing up our arms and saying that the Finns are getting attacked so much more and that the Somalis are ten times more racist, because when you do the maths, that’s what you get (exactly like the Finnish Police have suggested we use the statistics).

Finnish racists when they exist simply have less opportunity to express their racism and so to appear in the statistics. Using the ‘whole population’ therefore waters down the ‘per encounter’ rate and hugely underestimates the rate of racism of the majority population.

To discover the true rate of racist crime, we must adjust for the fact that minorities are by definition rare and encounters with them are likewise rare for the majority population, while for the minority, encounters with Finns are commonplace. We must take account of rates of encounter to arrive at anything like a comparable per capita rate. Hate crimes are available in part to estimate rates of racism. It should be absolutely clear where the per capita figures are horrendously flawed in estimating rates of racism. Common sense, folks.

In other words, adjusting for the Somali minority in the age group 15¬-34 would give us a rate that is 227 times smaller than it currently is and a long way behind the rate for Finns.

Of course this isn’t the end of the story. There are numerous other factors that can also impact disproportionately on the statistics, including the higher percentage of young adults as a percentage in the age group aged 15-35, who are most likely to be involved in street assault. For Finns, they constitute about 23% of the population, while for Somalis, they constitute 40%. This would artificially inflate the Somali figure even further.

The idea of league tables per capita that compares minority populations or by implication the majority population is inherently flawed and is in my view an extremely cynical abuse of statistics where there is no explanation of the drawbacks. The work of a racist researcher? Or perhaps a totally incompetent one. Either way, it’s not good enough.

These issues are too important to think that people haven’t stopped to ask themselves what are the underlying assumptions in these statistics and how are they likely to be used, or to have actually monitored how the statistics are being used in the public debate. One look at the comments here or on some of the hate forums reveals just how eager racists are to make use of the police report to disparage immigrants.

Why do we have a league table, if not to make foreigners look bad and to make Finns look better than they are or to hide the true extent of racism in Finland? The idea of a league table is abhorrent and extremely misleading. It’s worse than that, it’s lying.

What adds to the injury is that people rely on these statistics to create profiles of particular national groups as being much more racist than they actually are, and much more racist than Finns.

So, hate crime statistics that are presented in such a way that they actually perpetuate hate crime!

Related

I know for a fact that Somalis arent racist to Finns because they’re not in position of power to be racist, so it’s ubsurdity toeven claim such a thing. Racism did increase in Finland and that goes to show that people in power arent doing anything about it, they just don’t care.

I’m certain that the Finnish police shares your view that a minority can’t be racist towards the race in power. Internet-police Fobba actually wrote that when the police officially declared through him how they are going to interpret the new hate speech law.

Racist crimes committed by minorities are directed towards other minorities and the gang factor inflates the statistics. For example when almost 100 Kurd & Somali youths clashed on Linnanmäki police must have recorded 100 or more hate crimes. There was hate from Somalis towards Kurds for not wearing scarfs and hate from Kurds towards Somalis for being fundamentalist.
Refugee reception centers should also boost the statistics. When you put a lot of people from different cultures into one small building you can’t avoid racial friction.

I’m sure that the blogger that just accused the Finnish police of racism for releasing these statistics misinterpreted the release on purpose. He makes the same mistakes as the racist forum activists keep doing. The Finnish police are overcautious and sensitive when minorities are involved. Some political entity probably ordered a hate crime survey from the police college. If they had left the ethnic division part out someone would’ve brought it up later to give more fuel for hate. The statistic would’ve also been useless for mapping racism.

The hate between some minority groups benefits no one. The majority should learn to respect minorities. Thankfully the hate criminals are a minority within the majority. Maybe on some day we can live in a world where scarf wearing muslims tolerate muslim girls without scarfs, shias don’t clash with sunnis, kurds don’t fight with turks, jews don’t hate muslims, muslims don’t hate jews, job applications by minorities are taken seriously and caucasians that just happen to be bald aren’t accused of being racist.

Racist crimes committed by minorities are directed towards other minorities and the gang factor inflates the statistics.

These are both factors that can skew the statistics, but neither of them have as much power as the ‘being a minority’ factor and how it affects everyday encounters. I mentioned the ‘gang’ factor, but I didn’t mention the racism of one minority towards another, and I think you are right to point it out.

Refugee reception centers should also boost the statistics. When you put a lot of people from different cultures into one small building you can’t avoid racial friction.

In this case though, we are talking about incidents that happen mostly in public and which result in a report to the Police services.

I’m sure that the blogger that just accused the Finnish police of racism for releasing these statistics misinterpreted the release on purpose.

That was me. And no, it was not ‘on purpose’. What purpose was that, I wonder? I have a great respect for Finnish researchers as I work with them daily. The issue for me was why was Table 12 in the report? It is based on a totally spurious notion of how to measure hate crime in the situation of a minority and majority population. It makes no mention of this, that I could detect, and yet the information from that table has already made its way into the public debate, with Finns accusing Somalis of being more racist than them. For fucks sake, Oskar, is it not allowed to respond to a situation like this out of a simple sense of justice?

He makes the same mistakes as the racist forum activists keep doing. The Finnish police are overcautious and sensitive when minorities are involved. Some political entity probably ordered a hate crime survey from the police college.

I’m sorry, but that is one hell of a fudge. Same mistake as the racists? What is that, pray tell? The Finnish police are overcautious where minorities are concerned, you say, and yet they produce a ‘league table’ of racist crimes by minorities when those statistics are inevitably massively skewed simply by virtue of their minority status? There was no ‘survey’ ordered by some wet political liberal behind Table 12, as you seem to imply. It was merely a manipulation of the hate crime statistics. And one that I find hard to justify.

If they had left the ethnic division part out someone would’ve brought it up later to give more fuel for hate. The statistic would’ve also been useless for mapping racism.

Pardon? So you are saying that somehow there had to be a ‘minorities’ slot because of some kind of pressure towards political correctness and so the natural solution was a league table of racists among foreigners. Oskar, you are really stretching the bounds of possibility now. Researchers do not think like that – “there has to be something here about minorities! Let’s put this table there!” I have no idea what you mean by your last sentence above.

The majority should learn to respect minorities.

Well I’m glad you think this. Perhaps you could be a little less lazy in processing the arguments and actually make a positive contribution towards actually making this a reality, instead of defending what appears to be incompetence or rather, institutional racism on the part of the Finnish police authorities.

Maybe on some day we can live in a world where scarf wearing muslims tolerate muslim girls without scarfs, shias don’t clash with sunnis, kurds don’t fight with turks, jews don’t hate muslims, muslims don’t hate jews, job applications by minorities are taken seriously and caucasians that just happen to be bald aren’t accused of being racist.

You know, this comment is so typical of a closet racist. He condemns racism, it appears, except that the specific racism he does condemns is that of the ‘other group’ (and it just happens to reflect the typical opinion of Islamaphobes), and when he starts to get around to the discrimination of his own group, he chooses a rather more neutral discrimination, i.e. “job applications by minorities are taken seriously”, and then finishes it off by trivialising the topic by mentioning discrimination againt bald people, as if it’s something that we all have to deal with.

I guess you must be bald and I must be accusing you of being a racist – is that the way you expected it to go?

Enrique, your calculations are totally irrelevant, because they are based on the assumption that a racist would always attack people of different race.

Even in your example, half of the somali population were racists and yet you wonder why the statistics would look that way 🙂

Your calculations even disregards the fact that if there is a racist Finn, who wants to attack a somali, he would surely find his way to encounter a somali. Your calculations even includes an assumption that Finns who never encounter a somali, are still racists and would attack a somali if they would see one.

Four criticisms and four times you build them on a complete misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the arguments. Perhaps you are deliberatly being stupid, because for me, the logic can be processed by primary school children? If you really cannot help yourself, I apologise, because clearly you are out of your depth in this debate, and should just shut the fuck up with your racism, because trying to find logical arguments to support it isn’t working.

they are based on the assumption that a racist would always attack people of different race.

Two things here. First, a racist attack is not merely one person of one race attacking someone of another race; the reason for the attack must be the racial difference. Second, I went to the effort of actually stating that this was an exaggeration only to illustrate the point. But it’s not necessary for the model that you assume a racist must always attack. It’s enough to show what happens when one racist from one camp does it. Then you see the skew. Then you can more easily see how one racist Finn stacks up against one racist Somali in terms of their impact on the statistics. A Somali who is a racist would have more opportunity to act out on being a racist compared to an equivalent Finn. The fact that the addtional level of racism shown in the per capita rate is actually quite small (some 30 times) suggests very strongly that Somalis are actually much less racist than Finns. You lose.

Even in your example, half of the somali population were racists and yet you wonder why the statistics would look that way

The per capita rate for racist attacks had nothing to do with the model. The example was to illustrate how just one individual (or two if you assume the same level of racism for the Finn and the Somali) can completely distort the statistics simply because the population size is small ‘relative to each other’. It is the relative proportions that causes the skew and not the ‘per capita rate’. You could have a population that was 10 times bigger where there was still only one racist in each camp, and it would be a 10% rate of racism in terms of the Somalis, but the actions of that one racist would still be exactly the same as previously in terms of demonstrating an effect of the disproportin of encounters between Finns and blacks and blacks and Finns. Seeing as you didn’t understand the example in the first place, the chances of you understanding the refutation of your claim is pretty slim. Oh well, for the wider audience, then!

Your calculations even disregards the fact that if there is a racist Finn, who wants to attack a somali, he would surely find his way to encounter a somali.

I doubt that that would somehow balance the disproportion of ‘natural encounters’. Plus, if you assume that kind of behaviour on the part of the Finn, then you have to assume the same for the Somali, and actually in that scenario, it would be much easier for the Somali who is actively seeking out Finns to find them, so this would only skew the model more in the direction of over-representing Somali racists in the model. Sorry, but you lose again.

Your calculations even includes an assumption that Finns who never encounter a somali, are still racists and would attack a somali if they would see one.

This is not an assumption of the model. The model only assumes that one Finn is racist and acts on that racism every time he randomly encounters a black person in the street, and vice versa for the black Somali encountering white Finns. This is enough to demonstrate the basic skew in the model of ‘attacks per capita’. You lose again, I’m afraid, Farang.

You try to twist all the facts so that it would support your agenda, which is destroying Finland as a country it is now.

Actually, I think that Finland is doing reasonably well on the level of human rights. There has been a lot of progress, but some of it is lip service, I have to say. There are individuals in Finland that understand the situation of human rights very well, and it is their burden to try to convince other more lazy Finns of their importance. But that’s the same in all countries. The majority gets dragged along, until at some point there is a majority mumbling that in fact, this was the right thing all along, and aren’t we all wonderful for actually deciding to do it this way!!!!

It must be very difficult Farant, when you actually cannot even understand the arguments of the people who disagree with you! I bit like being poked in the dark apparently at random with a safety pin.

–Why do we have a league table, if not to make foreigners look bad and to make Finns look better than they are or to hide the true extent of racism in Finland?

Great blog entry, Mark. Thank you.

To answer your question I believe it reinforces the fact that the police don’t consider racism a serious crime. They will do everything to water down this problem. What the police says and what it does not say is highly revealing.

You dodged the Fobba related part about how minority -> majority crimes aren’t considered as racism at least under hate speech law.

The mistake I was pointing out was taking a part of a bigger set of statistics/publication out of context and using it for your own hateful goals. That’s what racist forum/blogging radicals do. If the ethnic statistics part had been left out you would have used the annual increase in hate crimes percentages for making generalized assumptions about the nation’s majority.

In my opinion when Finland is concerned the discrimination on the labor market is the most dire example. I don’t consider it as neutral. The employer might act neutral or even positive in public but afterwards make racist comments in private. In many ways that are not always visible to the naked eye Finland is still a very racist community. However, in violent hate crimes Finland is on the bottom of the lists.

You’re the one that’s preaching hate by instantly labeling me as an islamaphobe. I’m not bald. I am friends with people from different cultural backgrounds muslims included. I actually visited Israel and loved it’s people. I’m sorry if most of my quick examples shared a common factor.

Your mission is to use Halla-aho style rhetorics to make everyone who disagrees with you look like racist hate criminals.

You dodged the Fobba related part about how minority -> majority crimes aren’t considered as racism at least under hate speech law.

Sorry, I didn’t dodge it on purpose, I just figured that it was a comment aimed at D4R, because he commented on the fact that minorities cannot be considered to be racist. If you ask me, then I think that Fobba are oversimplifying it. Clearly any person can be racist for all sorts of reasons. All racism can be considered ‘reactionary’ in that sense, because even Finns can be considered as merely reacting to ‘foreign invaders’, even if this is a false/stupid notion. In my view, even a minority could rise to power following a period of ‘persecution’ to actually ‘rule’ the majority in a ‘racist’ way. Or vice versa for that matter. In that sense, I do see racism as an exercise of power. It’s just so damn difficult for human beings that are born into a position of power and privelege to give up the stupid justifications for why they have that privilege. In that sense, human nature favours always the status quo, I would say. If that’s a racist society, then so be it, for most.

The mistake I was pointing out was taking a part of a bigger set of statistics/publication out of context and using it for your own hateful goals.

Sweet Oskar, there isn’t a hateful bone in my body towards individuals, including extremely annoying ones like Farang. The statistics created an injustice. I do hate injustice. That’s a different matter.

For a start, you have no idea about my goals. So stop pretending that you do. I took one part of the statistics, though I have also discussed other parts of the statistics on this blog in recent days. I took that part because it reflected the direction of discussion in hate forums and a growing realisation in myself that actually the ‘hate crime statistics’ were actually being used to perpetuate hate crime. Fuck me, but the irony of it really did catch me by surprise. If you want to interpret surprise for hate, go ahead, but you would be wrong.

If the ethnic statistics part had been left out you would have used the annual increase in hate crimes percentages for making generalized assumptions about the nation’s majority.

Now you are just pretending to be smart. If you know anything about me, you would know that I actually don’t favour ‘generalised assumptions’ very much, not least about the ‘nation’s majority’. I have and will continue to defend Finland when people make ‘generalised assumptions’ about Finland or Finns, even it’s Finns who appear to do it, such as the Perussuomalaiset.

That’s what racist forum/blogging radicals do.

Really? Gosh, you sound like a real expert!

In my opinion when Finland is concerned the discrimination on the labor market is the most dire example.

We agree on this. And in the end, it’s the most important issue, so I’m glad about that. Discrimination in employment affects people’s livelihoods and wellbeing directly. If you were to follow this blog a little more, you will notice that I do draw attention to this issue fairly regularly.

I don’t consider it as neutral.

Well, your wording of it certainly was compared to your leader of Muslims discriminating against women. But maybe that was me being too critical. 🙂

but afterwards make racist comments in private.

That has been my experience.

However, in violent hate crimes Finland is on the bottom of the lists.

Well, that is where you are approaching the argument too cerebrally. While ‘racist comments’ or assaults might be mild or less frequent by international standards (Finland’s ethnic minority is smaller and more urban after all), nevertheless, the impact of stigmatisation on the wellbeing of immigrants is significant. It affects how people feel doing even simply things like going to the shop to buy some milk. That’s important, because even though it’s trivial, it also strikes at the heart of living in a way that is more pervasive even than ‘not getting the last job you applied for’.

You’re the one that’s preaching hate by instantly labeling me as an islamaphobe.

For the record, I haven’t labelled you anything yet. Your first post was a disaster, to be honest, but I accept that it may not have accurately reflected your best intentions. What it did reveal is that explaining the narrative of hate of the ‘other side’ seems to come more naturally to you than exlaining the narrative of hate of Finns. That makes me suspicious, let’s say. But I give you the benefit of the doubt.

By the way, calling you an Islamaphobe is no comparison the the ‘preaching hate’ that parades itself within Finland’s hate forums. Nice that you try to create some equivalence there, but really, no can do!

I’m sorry if most of my quick examples shared a common factor.

Apology accepted. I apologise for patronising you by assuming that in fact you have an awful lot to learn about this debate and that you really should be more careful with your words.

Your mission is to use Halla-aho style rhetorics to make everyone who disagrees with you look like racist hate criminals.

Gosh, compared to the great Allah-oho himself. We are nothing alike. He tries to equate the great religion of Islam with peadophelia. Let’s get one thing straight here, I really do welcome debate and disagreement, as long as it’s not misrepresenting my argument. I really would like an explanation of this table and why it’s been included without a proper explanation of its obvious failings and I keep my mind open that it was an ‘oversight’, and that perhaps I just happen to have had more motivation to look deeper into the assumptions of the statistics than the researchers themselves.

In that sense, I agree with Enrique’s point that it may reflect nothing more than the fact that racism just isn’t taken seriously enough, so – throw a few tables, graphs and statistics together and think no more of it! Minorities appeased, as you would say. Only it really isn’t good enough. If it sat in the draw like so many government sponsored reports, I would have little grumble, but it’s being actively used to attack Somali people; it’s being used to further hate crimes. And that’s where I really do start to wonder what the hell the researchers were thinking….!!!

This is not an assumption of the model. The model only assumes that one Finn is racist and acts on that racism every time he randomly encounters a black person in the street, and vice versa for the black Somali encountering white Finns. This is enough to demonstrate the basic skew in the model of ‘attacks per capita’. You lose again, I’m afraid, Farang.

And here you demonstrate another of your models faults. In no way that reflects reality, that if someone is racist, he would commit a racist act EVERYTIME he encounters a person from the group he hates. Your model has absolutely nothing to do with reality, therefore it’s only purpose is to twist the facts and make Finns look bad.

You even accidentally admitted your agenda. You approved basically everything from the report, which supported your views, but from the very same report you condemn everything that show anything against somalis.

So this basically reveals your way to handle things: You selectively choose only those facts which supports your views but ignore everything that proves against your views. Normal intellectual person would change his own viewpoint when he sees facts that proves otherwise. That is basically you being dishonest to yourself.

Yes, well, it wasn’t supposed to represent reality in terms of actual numbers, it was to illustrate a key principle that must be taken into account. As you don’t want to take it into account, you do everything you can to reject the principle, starting with calling it unrealistic. Fine, but you only show your stupidity if that is what you do.

he would commit a racist act EVERYTIME he encounters a person from the group he hates.

That was done to simplify the maths so thick idiots like you would get it. What a waste of time, eh! The fact that it is assumed a racist equates to the same thing whether it was a Somali or a Finn was supposed to overcome the problem of exaggerating the habits of a racist. It think most primary school kids would have understood that. But not Farang.

Your model has absolutely nothing to do with reality, therefore it’s only purpose is to twist the facts and make Finns look bad.

Blah, blah. You still have not addressed the point, have you. How do you take account of the fact that ‘per encounter’ rates of racism will be totally different to ‘per capita’ rates, even though using exactly the same data, and where ‘per encounter’ is actually much more realistic, in the sense that it takes account of the ‘scarcity’ of foreigners in Finland, unlike the ‘per capita’ model?

You approved basically everything from the report, which supported your views, but from the very same report you condemn everything that show anything against somalis.

Ugh, what? I’m still reading the report. It wasn’t my view that police researchers would deliberately give skewed statistical tables that would feed hate speech. That was very much a surprise, my friend….

You selectively choose only those facts which supports your views but ignore everything that proves against your views.

Says the man who hasn’t actually said a single thing to refute the key argument that discredits the Police statistics on crimes per nationality per capita. I guess when you haven’t anything to say about the actual issue, all that’s left is to make stuff up!!!!!

Normal intellectual person would change his own viewpoint when he sees facts that proves otherwise.

I agree. Show me the facts that disprove my argument, and don’t insult us all by saying you already have. All you’ve done is insult me and misrepresent my ‘agenda’ and motives and the argument that I’ve made. I mean, you just haven’t got it. Not even close to understanding it. It was tricky in parts – easy to get distracted by ratios and what not, but you are not even close to getting it, even when spelled out in the simplest of terms.

That is basically you being dishonest to yourself.

Wow…isn’t that the worst insult ever.

Actually, I’m a very ‘busy’ person when it comes to this kind of writing, especially if I’m going to take a Finnish authority to task. I make a lot of effort to see the holes in my own argument, as much effort if not more than I use to actually create my arguments. I pushed this one both one way and then the other trying to prove myself wrong on this. And it still came out the same way. I could find no justification for presenting the data this way.

In fact, the lack of proper analysis left me thinking that the one avenue that was open to discovering the true rate of racism from the statistics was not just ‘shut off’, but actually manipulated in such a devious way that it actually created the complete opposite view of reality than any neutral and disinterested person would see.

And who was it that tried to turn the 800 odd assaults against foreigners in Finland in 2011 compared to the 12 assaults against Finns by Somalis into some kind of proof that Somalis as a nation were more racist than Finns? Yep, it was you Farang. You created the monster before you. Enjoy!

That was done to simplify the maths so thick idiots like you would get it. What a waste of time, eh!

What sense would it make to twist things so that it doesn’t in anyway reflect reality and call that “simplifying”? Why would you even need to simplify anything? I don’t think we have 5-year olds here reading these posts.

Everyone here can perfectly understand the report and statistics. By “simplifying” you only try to change what the facts actually tell.

And you even tried to justify the racist acts by somalis against finns by the fact that somalis sees so many finns that it’s only natural that they more likely start acting racist against them. That makes absolutely no sense. That argument of yours is implying that finns would be even more racist if they just would meet more foreigners. So deep inside you actually believe that most of the finns are racists and only thing that keep them from committing racist crimes is the fact that they don’t have the opportunity, because there are not enough foreigners here. Talking about prejudice…

What sense would it make to twist things so that it doesn’t in anyway reflect reality and call that “simplifying”?

The sense is in trying to remove irrelevant information and modify the model so that the important dynamic is controlled, and even seen to be controlled. This usually ‘reveals’ the dynamic, so that when you see the dynamic back in the ‘wild’ so to speak, you can see it amongst all the chaos. In that sense, the aim is exactly to reflect the key reality and to sift out all the stuff that is a distraction that stops you seeing it.

Everyone here can perfectly understand the report and statistics. By “simplifying” you only try to change what the facts actually tell.

Which I guess is your way of saying that you think the statistics show Somalis are more racist than Finns, which just goes to show you haven’t been paying attention at all and haven’t stopped to think for a second what on earth I’ve been trying to tell. All you ‘know’ is that somehow my method changes what you want to believe, and so it must be ‘changing the facts’. Until you actually start to deal with the arguments I put forward and stop pussyfooting around the issue calling me names and attacking my motives, then there is little chance that people are going to see your criticisms as anything more than sour grapes, Farang. Sorry, but you lose.

And you even tried to justify the racist acts by somalis against finns by the fact that somalis sees so many finns that it’s only natural that they more likely start acting racist against them.

Absolute rubbish. Fairy tales, Farang. I did not say that and I do not believe that at all. There was no mention of people being racist because it was ‘natural’. Fucking moron, you are.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Well, that’s true, but not much of what comes out of your head makes sense, I’m afraid.

That argument of yours is implying that finns would be even more racist if they just would meet more foreigners

You are really stuck in some kind of time warp here, arent’ you? It’s perfectly possible for some Finns to have very little contact with foreigners and still to hold very racist views. It’s also possible that as and when they come into contact with foreigners that they might say something racist or even physically abuse the foreigner. However, none of this was an assumption of the model. The model points out simply that we don’t know how racist Finns are if the only way we measure it is through complaints to the Police that arise AFTER AN ENCOUNTER with an foreigner, becuase many ‘racist’ Finns will not have that encounter. However, what you can do is look at the actual assaults and try to guage if those assaults can be said to represent the right proportion of racist Finns encountering Foreigners. If it only constitutes the portion of Finns who actually meet foreigners, then the ‘per capita’ measure is utterly useless. That was the point, for about the fiftieth time!!! 🙂

So deep inside you actually believe that most of the finns are racists

Oh shut up you obnoxious little man. Is that the only conclusion you can come to? Where did I say that? Nowhere. Actually, the example I gave was one Finn in 10,000 for God’s sake. Actually my experience is that racism is alive and well in Finland, but that it is a minority. It’s not the numbers that really worries me, it’s the way they are trying to direct the discussion.

they don’t have the opportunity, because there are not enough foreigners here.

That really ISN’T the point. The point is that you cannot use a ‘per capita’ model unless you can be sure that small sample you base your statistics on are representative of the general population. If you know that only 100 Finns in 10,000 actually get to meet a foreigner, then you can only talk about proportions of 100. If one is a racist, then it’s one in 100. The problem with the ‘per capita’ model is that it extrapolates to all those people who have no or little contact with foreigner, so that the 1 in 100 is presented as 1 in 10,000. That’s just plain false. I really don’t see how you fail to see this?

Which I guess is your way of saying that you think the statistics show Somalis are more racist than Finns, which just goes to show you haven’t been paying attention at all and haven’t stopped to think for a second what on earth I’ve been trying to tell.

That’s exactly the fact it tells. If the case was so that Somalis would NOT be more racist than Finns, then after we would leave out all provocated assaults, I would expect to see 0 or 1 racist attack by a Somali. Anything more just reveals the racism.

The problem with the ‘per capita’ model is that it extrapolates to all those people who have no or little contact with foreigner, so that the 1 in 100 is presented as 1 in 10,000. That’s just plain false. I really don’t see how you fail to see this?

And here you admit again, what you tried to disquise earlier. You ASSUME that there must be more racists hiding there than the statistics show.

TRUTH can be measured with numbers. As soon as you start to include numbers that are unknown, it’s no longer a truth. You are doing exactly the same as some time earlier with rape statistics. You start to include imaginary numbers of “unreported cases” and try to change the results with them.

You can’t measure something you don’t know. You can’t add those numbers, because nobody knows those numbers. You can’t just make them up by assumptions. With your logic, there would be no sense to make any kind of statistics at all.

No, it’s not. The comparison of a majority and minority population is not unproblematic, for the simple reason that the minority or majority status clearly affects the behaviour that is being studied.

I would expect to see 0 or 1 racist attack by a Somali. Anything more just reveals the racism.

Wrong. Pay attention to the arguments. Your insistence on blackballing immigrants with this statistic reveal you for the ugly racist you are. Honest and sensible people would be open to the argument, eager that a major injustice be avoided or an unfair stigmatisation of a minority group.

TRUTH can be measured with numbers.As soon as you start to include numbers that are unknown, it’s no longer a truth.

You sound like a fanatic and dogmatist. This is not about ‘unknown numbers’, this about a sound basis for COMPARISON of data across population groups. You really are missing the point, big style! All this talk of truth, perhaps you should just go and ask a friend that knows something about statistics to explain it to you.

You start to include imaginary numbers of “unreported cases” and try to change the results with them.

Actually, it isn’t me that insists we look at the significance of ‘unreported cases’, but Tukinainen, the support service for victims of rape. Likewise, all rape researchers are well aware of this phenomenon and it’s impact on under-reporting of rape in Finland. Again, the issue is about looking at what statistics can accurately tell us about the ‘extent’ of a problem. International comparisons are often seen as being totally useless for the very same reasons, that there are factors that affect reporting or the phenomena in question. When rape inside marriage was legal in Finland, this acted to underestimate the incidence of rape, as measured through crime statistics.

Mark, I bet you would like to have a statistic, which first takes every finn who have committed a racist attack against foreigners and then creates a statistic about them, which shows that 100 % of Finns are racists 🙂

Have you watched a movie “Minority Report”? You remind me of that movie. You think exactly that way -> “There are lots of racist assaulters, they just haven’t had change to assault anyone yet”.

Your life would be easier if you just accept yourself that crime is a crime only after it’s been committed. And you also need to understand that having racist thoughts is not a crime.

If statistics are about hate crimes, then they will not include any “crimes” which haven’t happened 🙂

BTW. How do you explain this behaviour: A victim is saved from unsafe place by a rescuer. Rescuer then gives the victim a safe home. Then the victim assaults the rescuer.

Mark, I bet you would like to have a statistic, which first takes every finn who have committed a racist attack against foreigners and then creates a statistic about them, which shows that 100 % of Finns are racists

More potty nonsense from Farang because he cannot have a grown-up conversation about racism.

Your life would be easier if you just accept yourself that crime is a crime only after it’s been committed. And you also need to understand that having racist thoughts is not a crime.

You are really stuck trying to understand this, aren’t you? The example I gave modelled the actions of just two people to illustrated how they affect differently a ‘per capita’ statistic in a way that is massively skewed. One person does not necessarily get convicted more than once, but the idea that a racist is only ever a racist ‘for one time only’ is totally unrealistic. People with those extreme views that would actually racially abuse or assault someone tend to repeat their behaviour, and the simple truth is that for a racist Finn, there are not that many opportunities to repeat that behaviour often and so ‘get caught’ as there are for a racist Somali.

Racist crime is discussed not as a crime per se, but a symptom or indicator for the level of racism within society. Perhaps this is just too complicated for you to understand. And yet you are quite happy to take ‘per capita’ information on Somalis with no consideration of what it actually tells us, simply to present Somalis as ‘more racist’. You can’t have your cake and eat it, Farang!

If statistics are about hate crimes, then they will not include any “crimes” which haven’t happened

This is a misunderstanding. We are not adding crimes that have not happened, we are taking people OUT of the calculation because they had no opportunity to commit the crime even. Remember, this statistic is not about the number of crimes, but about COMPARING the ‘rates of racism’ between one group and another.

Here’s another example that might make it clearer to you. Imagine if we were measuring household alcohol consumption and we measured all members of the household. One household has 10 kids and two adults, and the parents are heavy alcoholics. However, when averaged across the ’12’ members of the household, the drinking level for the parents would actually appear quite low. Likewise, when compared to another family with no children and only a moderate level of drinking, the moderate drinkers would appear to be heavier drinkers than the alcoholics. For that reason, statistics often deal only with certain segments of society.

Clearly, a statistic that tries to measure the ‘amount of racism’ should take account of those that CANNOT be racist by definition, because they never come into contact with a black person. Leaving them in the equation only waters down level of racism of those that do come into contact with blacks.

If an immigrants is given a home in Finland and that immigrant commits crimes, then I think it is disappointing. But making all immigrants somehow responsible would be an even bigger crime.

And who was it that tried to turn the 800 odd assaults against foreigners in Finland in 2011 compared to the 12 assaults against Finns by Somalis into some kind of proof that Somalis as a nation were more racist than Finns? Yep, it was you Farang. You created the monster before you. Enjoy!

Did you mean as a people or as a nation? As a nation Somalia is one of the most racist places in the world. Bantu, Rerhamar, Bravanese, Bajuni and Eyle minorities continuously suffer numerous forms of discrimination and exclusion.

Two points. First, I don’t think that what is happening inside Somalia should be somehow ‘blamed’ on the people living in Finland. Many of the people coming from Somalia did so because they either fought against it or were revulsed by it.

Second, I would say that the conflicts between the Somali Bantu, Reer hamar (Benadiri), Bravanese, Bajuni and Eyle minorities are to a large extent ‘clan’ conflicts. They do not fit the model of ‘racism’ that we see in Western countries. It’s not to say it isn’t discrimination, but it’s of a different kind and not what I would call racism. It’s a grey area, I admit, between racism and inter-ethnic conflict.

Somalia is one of the most racist places in the world????? My question to you is where is your evidence? have you ever been in to Somalia during peace time? have you ever met bantus or any other africans that supposedly faced discrimination by Somalis as you claim? something is telling me that, these words are from the racist websites you visit that spreads constant lies about us and other vicible minorities.

This is a misunderstanding. We are not adding crimes that have not happened, we are taking people OUT of the calculation because they had no opportunity to commit the crime even.

This is the biggest flaw in your mode. How can you say that they had no opportunity? If one of these people would be a racist and would like to do racist act against foreigners, he would sure find his way to find some foreigners.

But no, you want to take all these non-racists out of the equation so that you could fake the statistics to show bigger percentage of Finns to be racist.

By taking them out of the equation you make the assumption that among these people are there are exactly same percentage of racist as is among the people who have encountered foreigners. Can’t you see the flaw here?

This is the biggest flaw in your mode. How can you say that they had no opportunity? If one of these people would be a racist and would like to do racist act against foreigners, he would sure find his way to find some foreigners.

I think you are being unrealistic. Perhaps the odd fanatic who might actually go out of their way to ‘meet’ the enemy, but the vast majority of racist incidences reported to police are chance encounters on the street.

But no, you want to take all these non-racists out of the equation so that you could fake the statistics to show bigger percentage of Finns to be racist.

I want justice, Farang. And if I see a method being applied that is grossly unfair to a particular group, then I will say something. In this case, it’s unfair to Somalis and others put into a league table. The basis for the comparison is flawed.

But no, you want to take all these non-racists out of the equation so that you could fake the statistics to show bigger percentage of Finns to be racist.

It’s not about taking ‘non-racists’ out of the equation, it’s about being realistic about whether the ‘per capita rate’ tells us the true rate of racism in Finland. My contention is that it will only ever drastically underestimate the level of racism. Generally, the racism attacks are compared year on year, and this is seen as perhaps more reliable of any ‘changes’ in the rate, though this is also affected by increased numbers of immigrants. We would expect racist crimes to rise with rising immigrant populations; it doesn’t mean that the level of racism is going up. But neither does it tell us the ‘top level’ of racism either. The idea that the per capita rate is the basis for a comparison or even an accurate guage of levels of racism is deeply flawed. If it’s flawed, why present per capita rates for minorities? That’s a recipe for feeding hate speech. At the very least, they could explain the difficulties in interpreting these statistics and the real limitations of these statistics.

Imagine another scenario where racism would be 100% in Finland (I know you’ll love this!) and Finland would have no blacks (I know you would love this too), and then one day, one black person arrives, is assaulted within hours, replies with some racial insults of his own by way of retaliation, is arrested along with the Finn and later leaves Finland in disgust. The statistics would show that 1 in 5.2 million Finns are racist and 1 in 1 blacks are racist. The conclusion from such a ridiculous comparison is that blacks are 5.2 million times more racist than Finns. This is the logic that you are applying.

By taking them out of the equation you make the assumption that among these people are there are exactly same percentage of racist as is among the people who have encountered foreigners.

We don’t know if the one’s ‘we take out of the equation’ is the same percentage as those who have encountered a foreigner, because until we know the extent of encountering, we cannot describe racism as per rate of encounter. While this is a theoretical idea, it is extremely difficult to model. It is also true that a racist will have 100 encounters without any abuse or assaults, but then one day he can control it no longer. Like you say, many racists are racists ‘in their head’, though pretending that that is harmless is pretty moronic. What we can say for sure is that the racism WON’T show up in the statistics if he isn’t encountering any foreigners at all. The two are directly linked, the rate of encounter and the recorded per capita rate of racism. One doesn’t make much sense without the other, really. That is why we need surveys.

The point of my examples is not to suggest what the reality is in terms of actual levels of racism in Finland, but 1) to show how it is wide open to being underestimated, and 2) to show how this underestimation makes a comparison with minorities completely flawed, and 3) to show how an equal number of racists can have quite different impacts based on which population they belong to. One racist of a majority can have a small impact on the statistics, while one racist among a small minority has a much bigger relative impact on the statistics, regardless of the level of racism of other people within the population.

That’s why I asked if you were talking about the people but instead used the word nation by accident.

Bantus were originally brought to Somalia as slaves. Some Bantu groups remained enslaved well until the 1930s. Intermarriage between Somalis and Bantus results in ostracism. Would you say that the treatment of african americans in the 1950s was also just an ethnic conflict? What about the South African apartheid’s collapse? There was a lot of ethnic conflict involved.

Would you say that the treatment of african americans in the 1950s was also just an ethnic conflict?

Well, racism has traditionally been used a term for describing the discrimination that whites systematically carried out against the black races. In the wider discussion, the idea of ‘racial’ superiority can of course translate into ‘ethnic’ superiority and be less attached to ideas of skin colour.

I wouldn’t describe anything in the terms ‘just an ethnic conflict’. I don’t think there is an intrinsic hiararchy of prejudices – a prejudice can be the basis for mild or brutal discrimination alike. In today’s anthropology, you could look at a struggle against racism as an ‘ethnic conflict’, and indeed, there are advantages to doing so. It makes us more aware of the ‘norm’ of white ethnicities when we refer to the culture of whites as ‘white ethnicity’. Sometimes the privileges that go with the group that has hegemonic control can be so taken for granted that people don’t see it as, for example, an ethnic problem at all, but just a clear superiority of one group over another. I think this element of assumed superiority is very important to racism, but it can also be just a plain old self-interest that tries to protect an advantage at all costs. If that advantage comes from group-membership, then people defend the group’s advantages as if they were their very own.

Look, let’s try to clarify some things, because this conversation is all over the place at the moment.

1) I do not think that the Finnish police have under- or overestimated the incidence of per capita rates of racist crime in Finland. The figures are what they are.

2) However, those figures are collated for the reason of trying to estimate the rate of racism in Finland, and it’s when we move from the cold statistics of racist crimes rates to trying to understand what they tell us about rates of racism that the problems start.

3) Using per capita rates of crime as a way of estimating relative rates of racism is flawed. This is exactly what you have done and which first prompted me to look into this in the first place. You talk about Somalis being more racist, which is different to saying they committed more racist crime per capita.

Using hate crime statistics as a proxy for rates of racism cannot be done, and the Police should have made that clear in their report, especially as they went to the trouble of producing a league table of racist crimes by foreigners. Interestingly, they didn’t put the figures for Suomi on that table, but I guess that would have been a little bit too obvious.

You provided your own interpretation:

Therefore Somalis are responsible for over 30 times more hate crimes than Finns.

For you, that means they are 30 times more racist. And that’s where we disagree. This really is where statistics lie. Not because the rates are wrong, but the assumption that the rates are a direct proxy for the rates of racism…..that’s the problem, and that’s the nettle you are not prepared to grasp! Why? Because it completely undermines your claim that this ‘proves’ Somalis are more racist.

You wrote:

If the case was so that Somalis would NOT be more racist than Finns, then after we would leave out all provocated assaults, I would expect to see 0 or 1 racist attack by a Somali. Anything more just reveals the racism.

See, you jump from talking about racist hate crime rates to talking about rates of racism, as if they were absolutely equivalent. They are not. That’s it in a nutshell.

What we can say for sure is that the racism WON’T show up in the statistics if he isn’t encountering any foreigners at all. The two are directly linked, the rate of encounter and the recorded per capita rate of racism. One doesn’t make much sense without the other, really. That is why we need surveys.

Which one do you consider more important problem: a) racist thoughts or b) racist actions?

Which one should we be worrying more: a) racist thoughts or b) racist actions?

Racist thoughts are not shown in statistics, why? Because we can’t measure them. There wouldn’t be even any point in trying to make statistics about them.

But on the other hand, actions we can measure and those are what the statistics are revealing. You don’t like the statistics, because it shows facts which are contradicting with your personal point of views.

Then you try to mix these two totally different issues, thoughts and actions, into one and the you try to take one part from here and another part from there and combine something which is no longer representing reality in any form. That is dishonesty in it’s purest form.

And do you really consider a survey more reliable than official records? In a survey the person can answer whatever he want to see as a result of that survey.

So as a conclusion: Let’s stick with the facts instead of making assumptions of something that nobody can ever know.

Which one should we be worrying more: a) racist thoughts or b) racist actions?

This question is totally irrelevant to my criticism of using per capita rates for crime as a direct measure of levels of racism in a population. For me, though, I really cannot imagine that someone who has ‘racist’ thoughts is somehow not going to have any negative affect on that society. If they vote for PS, which they almost certainly would, then they are giving a political mandate to a party that is promoting a fascist agenda and polluting Finland’s political landscape and normalising anti-immigration rhetoric and arguments.

Racist thoughts are not shown in statistics, why? Because we can’t measure them. There wouldn’t be even any point in trying to make statistics about them.

Well, keep telling yourself that racists can be racists and still have no negative effect whatsoever on the society in which they live. I’m a realist. I also know that suffering can be as a result of people NOT doing things for you that they should do. These are moral crimes by ommission, as opposed to crimes by commission. The former would be things like not making friends with that person, not helping that person if they were hurt in the street, that kind of thing. Not crimes in the eyes of the law, but moral crimes nontheless.

You don’t like the statistics, because it shows facts which are contradicting with your personal point of views.

I work with statistics, Farang, you clearly do not. I’m not a statistician, but statistics are a big part of my job. They have their place. Racism should be monitored in Finland, but the statistics reports should very clear about what you can and what you cannot see with them, what their limitations are and why we need other methods. If the statisticians produce league tables for ‘rates of racism’ among foreigners, then they damn well should explain why they are extremely limited or heavily skewed by the ‘minority effect’.

And do you really consider a survey more reliable than official records?

I have no problem with the reliability of rates for hate crimes in Finland, though I would consider things like whether crimes committed by foreigners are reported more often, as this is absolutely a factor in rape crime in Finland, for instance. What I have a problem with is people assuming hate crime statistics are a direct proxy for levels of racism in a minority or majority population. That is where the statistics are almost useless, but that is exactly how you are using them.

Let’s stick with the facts instead of making assumptions of something that nobody can ever know

I would agree with you here. We really do not know the rates of encounters for the majority and minority populations, which makes the ‘assumptions’ that underlie the rate per capita statistics very questionable.

See, you jump from talking about racist hate crime rates to talking about rates of racism, as if they were absolutely equivalent. They are not. That’s it in a nutshell.

No. A person can be racist and yet he would never do racist act against someone. But, person who does racist act against someone, always is also a racist.

Meaning, people who do racists acts are a sub-group of people who are racists.

Point here is that if there are a racist act, we can say that those people committing them are also racists. But it doesn’t work other way around. You can’t assume that all racists (people who have racist thoughts) would actually ever commit racist actions.

Therefore it’s only meaningless to take in account the actions, when we are talking about racism as a problem. And the actions are exactly what the statistics reveal.

Point here is that if there are a racist act, we can say that those people committing them are also racists. But it doesn’t work other way around. You can’t assume that all racists (people who have racist thoughts) would actually ever commit racist actions.

I haven’t assumed it. Even if you want to give a ballpark figure of say 1% of racists who will commit a racist crime, the model still works the same way: it exaggerates the rate of racism in the minority if you do a per capita calculation for ‘crime rate’ and then use this as a direct proxy for ‘rate of racism’.

And whether you think people act on racism or not, you are a total tool if you think that people can hide racism or that it wouldn’t somehow affect immigrants. For a start, a racist might choose to vote for PS because that is a ‘safe’ way to act out on his racism, but it’s not safe if PS come to power and turn immigrants into second class citizens, propel and institutional a fascist and racist agenda.

2 groups, let’s say A and B, both have 100 members. There are 10 racists in each group.

Now, what happens is that 50 members from group A (10 racists and 40 non-racists) meets with all 100 members from group B. And when they meet, all the racists will attack persons from the other group.

Now the police will record 20 racist cases, 10 from each group. Now the statistics show these cases and one can calculate the per capita figure, which is 10 %, like it should.

But now, as these 50 members of group A didn’t go and meet that group B, Mark wants to leave them out of the equation and ccalculate the racism percentage for group A as 10/50, making it 20%.

Now the figure is twice as big as for group B, even when in reality the figure should be same for both groups.

Can you now see what happens when you start to include imaginary numbers based on assumptions? We have to stick with the facts and live with then numbers they provide. We can’t go adjusting them based on something nobody even knows.

You said that all 50 members met all 100 members from group B and that the 10 racists attacked the members of Group B, and yet there were only 20 crimes? Since when did 10 x 100 = 10? You said they met everyone? (That was how my example worked.)

If each member has met all the other members, then:

1) The 10 racists in Group A would have attacked the 100 members of Group B to give 1000 crime cases, at a rate of 10 per capita for Group A.

2) The 10 racists in Group B would have attacked the 50 members of Group A to give 500 crimes, at a rate of 5 per capita for Group B.

You’ve messed it up, haven’t you? 🙂 By what accident did you decide that Group A’s encounter group would have ALL the racists from the population in it? If you had actually given Group A’s encounter group 10% of the racists (i.e. 5 racists), it would have worked properly.

3) The 5 racists in Group A would have attacked the 100 members of Group B to give 500 crime cases, at a rate of 5 per capita for Group A.

4) The 10 racists in Group B would have attacked the 50 members of Group A to give 500 crimes, at a rate of 5 per capita for Group B.

Now that would have worked, and it should have, because you have the same rate of racism and the same size of population.

But that really ISN’T my model.

My model Group A is a minority, so not a population of 100, but a population of e.g. 50, like you suggested. Now do the calculation!

5) The 5 racists in Group A would have attacked the 100 members of Group B to give 500 crime cases, at a rate of 10 per capita for Group A.

This looks like Group A has twice the rate of racism of Group B. That’s the minority effect!!!!

The superior race thinking is very much present in the Bantu issue. Somalis think Bantus are an inferior race and consider them as lower class citizens. Most Bantus have converted to Islam and some have adopted the Somali language. Some Bantus have tried to integrate themselves into the Somali clan society. They are referred to by the Somalis as sheegato (pretenders). In Somali communities Bantus can only get low income jobs such as house servants.

So basically the only reason you don’t qualify this for using the racism word is that there are no white folk involved?

Fair enough, it is present in many conflicts, though the basis for it is not always so clear-cut. In Western societies, racism was specifically built on an ideological distinction between races where black races were presented as inferior.

When I refer to ethnic conflict, I mean too discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. And in Europe today, I would say that people who would be considered very clear cut racists are today trying to reframe the issue as an ‘ethnic conflict’, in that they want to be seen to be defending their own ethnic identity from ‘attack’ or dilution. That this is premised entirely on the idea of a homogenous culture is both a false ideology and a dangerous one.

So basically the only reason you don’t qualify this for using the racism word is that there are no white folk involved?

You seem eager to box me into a corner over definitions. I’m saying that you are using tribal and clan conflicts that have a strong history to represent Somalis as strongly racist. I think that is twisting the debate here with the apparent purpose of defaming Somalis living in Finland, many of whom have spent their childhoods here. I’m not defending ethnic discrimination, but I do question why you seem to want to focus on this?

I’m focusing on this example because you seem to be strongly against using the racism word with it. The word conflict paints a different picture and it presents both sides as victims. The word racism presents one side as the aggressor and one side as the victim.

The human nature is the same no matter what your culture is. Hypocrisy hinders progress. I’m willing to see problems that need fixing in Finnish attitudes. Would you be able to see things to fix in immigrants’ attitudes?
Lets take the hatred towards Jewish people for example. In Europe the Jewish people are easily blamed for what the state of Israel does. A friend of mine would like to visit Europe but she wants to make sure that she won’t encounter anti-semitism. She would travel with a child so I fully understand that it’s not something she’d want to expose the child to.
She’s considering Finland because she’s expecting to find the least anti-semitism here. I couldn’t recommend UK or Sweden to her because I have read several articles about violence against the Jewish on hs.fi.

I’m focusing on this example because you seem to be strongly against using the racism word with it.

You would be wrong. But I really don’t think it’s the same phenomenon that we have seen in the West. I’ve also pointed out that these days, researchers refer to discrimination on the basis of ethnicity because it is something broader than the ‘historical’ thing we often call racism.

I agree a ‘conflict’ paints a different picture, but it’s also true to say that much fo the clan warfare that goes on in Somalia and other African countries is clan warfare, or tribal warfare/conflict. Or do you deny that? The reason that we might call it a conflict rather than racism is because the balance of power may shift from one clan or another over time or even year on year or area to areaa. It is still discrimination based on ethnicity, but it’s a lot of other things too that complicate the picture. I am not the kind of person that invents words and then tries to force reality to fit the words, if that is what you imply.

The human nature is the same no matter what your culture is.

I think you are right to an extent, but this doesn’t balance things when one group is opressing another, simply to say that it would just be the same if it was the other group ‘in power’. The idea of the modern world is that power is shared and the rights of minorities in particular are protected. I would guess that you are in favour of these values?

Would you be able to see things to fix in immigrants’ attitudes?

The fact you ask the question seems to suggest you think I wouldn’t. That’s a shame. I think people should be prepared to see and appreciate each other’s values. But a line must be drawn in protecting people’s basic rights. My gripe is that those that oppose immigration to Finland are busy trying to invent ways to turn immigrants into second-class citizens.

So basically I’m accusing you of the same thing you accused me of: condemning some examples discrimination but treating the other examples with neutrality.

My reluctance to fully indugle you is that I don’t think that admitting there is racism in Somalia gives equivalence or suport for the notion that Somalis in Finland are particularly racist. Anything else is going off the point quite a bit, don’t you think?

I try to approach both sides with neutrality. If you don’t see that, there’s not much to be said.

though I would consider things like whether crimes committed by foreigners are reported more often, as this is absolutely a factor in rape crime in Finland, for instance.

There is and have never been any evidence that there is a correlation between reporting frequency and the nationality of the attacker.

I would agree with you here. We really do not know the rates of encounters for the majority and minority populations, which makes the ‘assumptions’ that underlie the rate per capita statistics very questionable.

We don’t need to know the rate of encounter. We don’t need that figure anywhere. That is just something that you have made up in your mind.

You said that all 50 members met all 100 members from group B and that the 10 racists attacked the members of Group B, and yet there were only 20 crimes? Since when did 10 x 100 = 10? You said they met everyone? (That was how my example worked.)

Since when meeting someone has been a crime?

If person meets 100 persons, it doesn’t mean he would commit crimes against each of them. In my example each of the racists committed a crime against one person in the other group.

Once again you just made up your own assumptions and then used that assumption of YOURS as an argument against my example? Are you serious 😀 Or are you just losing it?

There is and have never been any evidence that there is a correlation between reporting frequency and the nationality of the attacker.

Tukinainen is a respected Rape Crisis Hotline that compiles its own research data based on information given by its callers. It takes part in national and international research on rape. Underreporting of rape generally is a very well established fact with literally hundreds of studies to back it up. It’s also a well-known fact that 90% of rapes take place in the home or workplace, making the reporting of rape much more difficult for the victim because of the greater personal consequences for them, which is not the case with street rapes.

It is pretty galling to hear a prick like you telling the world there is no evidence, when clearly you know nothing about the issue and cannot be bothered to get off your lazy arse to find out.

We don’t need to know the rate of encounter. We don’t need that figure anywhere.

The easiest way to decide if this is true is to make the calculation and to see if it makes a difference when it’s left out.

Let’s set the rate of racism at 5% for both Group A and Group B, so that we would therefore expect per capita crimes to also yield the same figures for both groups:

Remember, rate of racism assumes that only a racist commits a racist crime, and that a racist crime of the kind we are talking about (assault) can only be committed by those that actually encounter foreigners. There is no getting around these basic FACTS, Farang.

Group A – minority
N = 100 (total population of minority)
n = 100 (number of population encountering people of another race)
C = number of crimes per year = 5 (i.e. 5% of n)per capita rate = 0.05 (based on C/N)

Group B – majority
N = 2500
n = 250 (number of population encountering people of another race)
C = number of crimes per year = 12.5 (5% of n)
(1) per capita rate = 0.005 (based on C/N, i.e. not taking account of n)
(2) per capita rate = 0.05 (based on C/n, i.e. taking account of n)

This calculation gives a per capita rate of racist crime (1) that is 10 times greater for the minority than the majority population when you do not take account of the rate of encounters, even though WE set the rate at EXACTLY THE SAME LEVEL, i.e. 5%.

Conclusion, the rate of enounter does have an enormous effect on statistics of rates of crime.

We have gone over this several times, Farang, and when you had a go at the maths, you messed it up completely.

Since when meeting someone has been a crime?

We decided that the racists would always attack those they meet in order to avoid the complexity that would come with deciding just how many encounters it would take for a racist to actually attack someone of a different race. I did mention this and said that we could assume it would make no difference, but it would add complexity. We did this not because it isn’t important, but because as a variable, we can make the assumption that it’s broadly similar across both groups, and therefore we could control for it by making it equal 0, i.e. all encounters lead to an attack. There are factors, such as gangs and such that might affect this rate. I’m happy to explore this, but it’s also clear that it will not affect the numbers as much as non-reporting of encounter rates.

The fact that you have introduced a hidden variable and also skewed that variable to make the minority commit more crimes per rate of encounter than the majority is just the typical LYING that you have to do to make the numbers add up without giving away your game.

If person meets 100 persons, it doesn’t mean he would commit crimes against each of them. In my example each of the racists committed a crime against one person in the other group.

In your example, racist foreigners had more encounters with foreigners but make the same number of crimes? And you didn’t take account of the fact at all that a proportion of the native population would never meet a foreigner. No, you put all the racists from the minority group into the encounter group to try to make the maths add up, and still fucked up the maths. 🙂

But this is actually getting a lot closer to my point than you have ever been, so I’m actually happy that FINALLY you are starting to actually think about this. You are right to say that not every encounter will bring a crime, even if the person is a racist. And for that reason, we could also say that the more encounters that a racist has, the more likely that eventually they will commit a crime. So for Finns who hardly meet a foreigner, we would expect that many cases the racist will not commit a crime. But if a foreigner who is a racist is automatically encountering a great many natives, then there is a far higher chance that this foreigner’s racism is going to register in the crime statistics in the form of an actual assault.

Once again you just made up your own assumptions and then used that assumption of YOURS as an argument against my example?

That’s called ‘peer-review’, my friend. The question really is whether the assumptions are backed up by both the maths and by logic. In this case, it is.

You clearly didn’t read the example, did you? That’s why you have to invent your own ‘equation’, ‘leave something out’, and QED, you’ve proved I’ve tried to alter the laws of maths. Except that this is called ‘pigeon chess’, Farang, and I’m getting tired of it.

But you aren’t a million miles away. This was the logic: 1+2+3=6 = correct answer, if 1+2=6, we can clearly see something is wrong, so something ‘has been left out’ that shouldn’t be. But keep it up, Farang, the penny will drop eventually.

I do wish that this is a problem that sticks in your brain all through the holidays Farang, and if that makes you merry, well and good! 🙂

We decided that the racists would always attack those they meet in order to avoid the complexity that would come with deciding just how many encounters it would take for a racist to actually attack someone of a different race.

No. If the racist is busy beating one person, how would he even have time to beat another one?

But you aren’t a million miles away. This was the logic: 1+2+3=6 = correct answer, if 1+2=6, we can clearly see something is wrong, so something ‘has been left out’ that shouldn’t be. But keep it up, Farang, the penny will drop eventually.

Ok, now I see the problem here 🙂

We both have our own interpretation of which should be the correct answer to the equation. I think it won’t change no matter how much we debate here…

In my example all the racists were included in the group which went for the encounter trip simply because they have the motivation for attacking the opposite group. Therefore they won’t just stay home when they have the change to act on their sick believes…

That is my original point, which I disagree with your model. Your model assumed that there are as much racists in the group of Finns who never encounters immigrants, as there are among those who do encounter immigrants.

This is pure mathematical fact, which you can’t adjust. When you take a certain group and calculate (per capita) percentages using that group, then the result assumes that the percentage reflects for the WHOLE population. Therefore you can’t take biased group for calculating that kind of statistics.

We both have our own interpretation of which should be the correct answer to the equation.

The issue was not the correct answer, but the way an equation that doesn’t give the correct answer reveals a fault in the equation. The penny obviously hasn’t dropped just yet!

In my example all the racists were included in the group which went for the encounter trip simply because they have the motivation for attacking the opposite group. Therefore they won’t just stay home when they have the change to act on their sick believes…

Let me see, now. So you actually agree that my model is correct, but that you think that all the racists in the host population should be represented in the encounter group because they are the one’s motivated to go and meet the foreigners? Is that right?

Let me see, now. So you actually agree that my model is correct, but that you think that all the racists in the host population should be represented in the encounter group because they are the one’s motivated to go and meet the foreigners? Is that right?

Yes. Exactly 🙂

But please remember, we are not talking about “racists” who are just racists by their opinions. We are talking about racists who actually commits racists crimes/actions against people.

I know there are lots of racists in people who never meet foreigners but they are not the people who would do anything criminal to anyone.

So you agreed with all the models, except you wanted me to included all the racists from the majority population rather than the ‘national average’? Remember, we don’t really know the rate of racism, and we only use it as a way to see if the model is consistent when we attempt to draw, for example, a per capita statistic from the crime statistics.

I want to be absolutely clear about what it is that you disagree or agree with, because so far you haven’t gone out of your way to say what you DO agree with about the model.

I want to be absolutely clear about what it is that you disagree or agree with, because so far you haven’t gone out of your way to say what you DO agree with about the model.

I bold it out for you from your message, I mean the part I agree with:

Let me see, now. So you actually agree that my model is correct, but that you think that all the racists in the host population should be represented in the encounter group because they are the one’s motivated to go and meet the foreigners? Is that right?

Let me teach you more math:

Group X consist of 1000 persons. Let’s divide that X as A and B which both have 500 persons.

Now, there is 100 racists in group sub-group B. If you want to represent the amount of racists in group B you can calculate 100/500 = 20 %.

But, if you want to represent the amounf of racists in group X you need to calculate 100/1000 = 10 %

You can only calculate what is confirmed. There is no confirmation that there exists any racists in sub-group A, therefore you have no basis to assume there is, nevertheless calculate your imagined racists in the equation.

I bold it out for you from your message, I mean the part I agree with:

It’s a shame you cannot be any more precise. I know for example that you agree with what YOU wrote. You are not telling us anything we don’t know. What I don’t know is whether you think that my argument is otherwise consistent and logical. I’m not asking if you think this is otherwise an entirely accurate model of the situation in Finland, as I myself don’t believe it is. But is it consistent as far as it goes in dealing with the issue of whether there can be a ‘minority effect’?

So far, you have said all racists must be included in the encounter group, which I agree would change the maths, but do you think my model is consistent in itself apart from this change that you would ask me to do? Or do you have any other objections that you would like to put on record now?

Your new example says that if we have two groups in a population and one has a known amount of racists, we cannot assume there are the same amount of racists or even any racists in the other group, and so the rate of racism must be of the whole population. I agree that you cannot assume anything when it comes to racism. You have to test everything.

One point though, if we take racist crime into account, it seems that all groups in Finland commit some kind of racist crime, so it would be unusual to assume to that one population didn’t commit any.

Second, the idea of my model is NOT to predict the level of racism or to assume there are or aren’t racists in a population. In fact, nothing like that. Rather, we FIX the rate of racism only so that we can TEST THE VALIDITY of the model. We are not saying anything about the actual levels of racism at this point. Rather, if the model spews out the ‘wrong’ answer from what we have already fixed, then we know the model is not accurate. Even if it spews out the right answer, we still have to test it further.

This is a very important point to understand.

But please, you really need to step up to the plate and be precise now, Farang, if you want to enter the world of real discussion, where ideas are properly tested, without fudging or hesitancy, or hiding your arguments. So please, tell me if you think my model is consistent and logical except for the fact that I have not included enough racists in the encounter group. I cannot move forward with you on this until I have a straight up honest answer from you.

So far, you have said all racists must be included in the encounter group, which I agree would change the maths, but do you think my model is consistent in itself apart from this change that you would ask me to do? Or do you have any other objections that you would like to put on record now?

Yes, your model is consistent otherwise. The only thing I don’t agree with is the exclusion of the people who haven’t had encounters with immigrants etc.

Yes, your model is consistent otherwise. The only thing I don’t agree with is the exclusion of the people who haven’t had encounters with immigrants etc.

Good, now we can make some progress.

It is very easy to test your assumption. We can look at the Finnish suspects in racist hate crime, because your theory says that a good percentage of them will come from other towns and cities than where the crime takes place.

Now while I find this idea to be totally ludicrous except in a handful of cases of ‘organised racism’, it nevertheless is a useful suggestion in that it can at least be tested. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if the police haven’t already noticed this as a clear trend in the statistics, then they are not doing their job.

If this is a trend, then we can study its effect and use it to modify my existing model as a factor that weakens the ‘minority effect’.

If it does not exist, and I seriously doubt that it does, then the ‘minority effect’ clearly demonstrates that turning racist hate crimes into a per capita measure that would imply rates of racism is horrendously flawed; it is naturally and very heavily skewed to watering down racism in the majority population and by comparison, increasing the rate of racism among minorities.

The fact that these very same kinds of statistics are being published by the police and are clearly being used by hate crowds to defame minorities is absolutely something that should be corrected immediately by the police authorities. And YOU are part of that hate crowd, because you came on here to say exactly that, Farang, that these figures show Somalis are more racist. You owe Somalis an apology, Farang. Let’s see if you are man enough to give one!

Ironic isn’t it. You now admit how the inclusion of those that have never encountered foreigners would skew the data, but you want to include them anyway.

I guess you just don’t SEE the things that contradict your stance, even when you just admitted seeing them in the previous millisecond. A great example of how damaging and pervasive the effects of prejudice can actually be.

Your new example says that if we have two groups in a population and one has a known amount of racists, we cannot assume there are the same amount of racists or even any racists in the other group, and so the rate of racism must be of the whole population. I agree that you cannot assume anything when it comes to racism. You have to test everything.

Maybe I should explain this more. We can’t do the assumption, because the groups are biased.

If we would have unbiased groups, then we could do the assumption. And by unbiased I mean, if the original group X was divided to subgroups RANDOMLY. Then whatever we would find in subgroup B would most likely be valid for subgroup B also.

But since the groups were not randomly selected, eg. it was biased, we can’t make any assumptions about the other subgroup based on findings on the other.

Like if you divide Finns to two groups: those who own a car, and those who don’t. Then you ask a question “What do you think of cars?” from just members of one of those groups. You can’t generalise the answers to reflect the opinions of the whole population.

But if you chose the people by random and ask the questions, then it would better reflect the opinions of whole population.

And bigger the group is, more accurate the averages are. And yes, I give you credit for pointing out that for example while the Somali population in Finland is way smaller than population of Finns, the statistics doesn’t apply as well as for Finns. It gives a direction, but not that accurate.

Like if you divide Finns to two groups: those who own a car, and those who don’t

Nowhere in the model are two groups split in this way, i.e. into racists and non-racists. Your example appears totally irrelevant.

But if you chose the people by random and ask the questions, then it would better reflect the opinions of whole population.

This was the method for deciding on the rate of racism for the encounter group.

I give you credit for pointing out that for example while the Somali population in Finland is way smaller than population of Finns, the statistics doesn’t apply as well as for Finns. It gives a direction, but not that accurate.

Yes, and based on the very obvious model that I have pointed out and which you mostly agree with, it CAN give the complete opposite direction of reality. That’s very disturbing, my friend.

Your truth is racism, Farang, which you defend even in the face of obvious and logical argument. Interesting how you have chosen to ignore the implications of a conclusion that in the end we arrived at together.

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